I really don't see that at all. There might be some implied sexism, and perhaps occasionally overt sexism, but it's nothing like what you see on other parts of the Internet. I've seldom read a top-rated comment on HN and thought, "wow, that's really sexist." Sure, they exist at the bottom of the page, but there isn't much we can do about that.

Do you have a discussion in mind that makes you feel that way? I'd like to see an example of what you consider "biased, vitriolic, and short-sighted commentary when it comes to women."

I didn't notice any gender-related comments on this article (I'm late to the party, so maybe I missed some that were higher up earlier), but HN does tend to be a place where people tend to post statements of disagreement far more often than they agree with whatever is posted. I'm certainly guilty of this myself on many (most?) occasions.

To some extent this is good and fosters a spirit of healthy debate, but in this case, it's out of place. This is an extremely sad event, and we don't need to be picking apart this girl's achievements while we should be mourning her passing, whatever her gender may be. Whether or not a Microsoft certification is a fantastic achievement at whatever age, this girl represents all the qualities that we should be encouraging in young people everywhere, and it's horrifying to see people try to diminish that.

It's always a tragedy when a 16 year old dies; it's even more upsetting when they were on such a promising trajectory. We should be sad about this without reservation, not questioning whether her path was provably remarkable enough to be worth talking about.